LOUGHBOROUGH Lightning suffered their first defeat of the 2017 Vitality Netball Superleague season on Saturday losing to Midlands rivals Wasps in the final minutes.

Arguably the game of the season so far, played at the Riders Arena in Leicester in front of a crowd in excess of 1,000, the match had everything except the result Lightning wanted.

With a complete change of positions, given the absence of star wing attack Hannah Joseph, it was maybe unsurprising Lightning made an error strewn start, quickly four goals down and they ended the quarter 15-12 down.

In the second quarter the game ebbed and flowed and midway through the quarter only one point separated the two sides, with Rebekah Airey putting up a tremendous fight against ex-England shooter Rachel Dunn, however credit to Wasps who rebuilt a five point lead to close the half 32-27 up.

Ella Clark was introduced at the start of the second half, the duel netball-basketball international making a real impact at goal attack, with Walker shifting to WA. This meant captain Nat Panagarry was able to call the shots from centre and England international Beth Cobden revert to her familiar wing defence role.

Before long Lightning were level, but couldn’t quite get their noses in front, with the score going according to each play.

They stuck at it though, and with three minutes to go in the quarter they finally had their breakthrough and closed the quarter 43-41 up.

In a barnstorming final quarter, tension was high as neither side wanted to give away a potentially match winning goal but when Beth Cobden was sin binned for two minutes for intentional obstruction, Wasps took full advantage of the extra player, moving into what proved an unassailable three goal lead to triumph 57-54.

After the match Lightning head coach Karen Atkinson played credit to Wasps on the win.

“Nobody likes to lose but full credit to Wasps, they came out firing this evening and they got a really good start - we probably learnt more from this game than we have from all of our other games.”